ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest Rule...

http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/~gvcormac/acmrules.html

ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest Rules (unocial)

Disclaimer
These rules are as paraphrased by me, Gordon Cormack in the fall of 1998, and revised January 2001. I believe the paraphrasal is accurate, but I'm providing no warranty. Here's an ocial ACM page that contains similar information.

Introduction
This year, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) holds its 23rd annual International Collegiate Programming Contest, open to teams of three students from postsecondary institutions throughout the world.

Structure of the Contest

Regional contests are conducted throughout the fall. Colleges and universities are invited to send a team or teams to the regional contests. These contests are held at various institutions in the individual regions and are conducted autonomously, with separate problem sets and judging. One or more teams from each region (depending on the number of participants) qualies to compete in the World Finals, held the following spring. Details on venues for the regional and nal competitions can be found at the contest web site.

Team Composition and Eligibility

A team consists of three full-time students from the same institution. Students on normal work or vacation terms are eligible provided they were registered in a full-time program prior to the work or vacation term and are continuing their program. At least two of the students must be undergraduates; that is, they must not hold a post-secondary degree in any subject. One student may be a graduate student provided he or she does not hold a graduate degree and has not completed 2 years of graduate study. Students who compete in the World Final (but not those who compete in the Regionals) are required to become student members of the ACM. Students who have participated in two World Final competitions are ineligible to participate in further Regional or World Final competitions.

The Contest
Each team has access to one computer work station, and is given (on paper) a set of

1 of 3

12/20/2013 08:39 PM

ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest Rule...

http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/~gvcormac/acmrules.html

independent problems which may be solved in any order. Each solution is a program, composed by the team at the work station, in one of a set of available languages. Regional contests provide C, C++, and Java compilers, and may provide compilers for other languages. Teams may bring books, notes, or papers for reference, but may not use any electronic or programmable device other than the single computer work station supplied by the contest. Team members may communicate with each other and with contest ocials but not with anyone else. Contest ocials will assist teams with system problems but all questions relating to the contest problem set must be submitted and answered in writing. When the team feels that it has solved a problem, the solution (a program in C, C++, Java, or other available language) is submitted for judging. It is judged by compiling it and running it against blind test data. If it produces correct output for all test data, it is judged correct. If it produces incorrect output it is judged incorrect. If it fails, either to compile, or to run without error, it is judged incorrect. The judgement is communicated to the team in as timely a manner as possible, and the team may re-submit solutions judged incorrect. Re-submissions for problems already judged correct are ignored. The contest runs for ve hours (or as varied by the region) and consists of six or more problems. Scores are available on-line to contestants and to spectators, except that they are not updated during the last hour of the contest (so as to ensure suspense about the nal rankings). The score is based on three components: the number of problems correctly solved; the time from the beginning of the contest to the submission of a correct solution for each problem; the number of incorrect submissions to a problem for which a correct solution is eventually submitted. First, teams are ranked in order of the number of correct solutions. When two or more teams have the same number of correct solutions, they are further ranked by penalty minutes computed as the sum of: for each solved problem, the number of minutes from the beginning of the contest until the correct solution was submitted for each solved problem, 20 minutes for each incorrect solution submitted before the correct solution Example Scoring Consider three teams, Red, Green, and Blue. The contest starts at 1:00 and the submissions are as follows: Red submits a correct solution to Problem A at 2:15. Green submits a correct solution to Problem B at 3:00. Red submits an incorrect solution to Problem H at 3:01. Green submits a correct solution to Problem A at 3:50. Red submits a correct solution to Problem H at 4:00. Green submits an incorrect colution to Problem A at 4:00.
2 of 3 12/20/2013 08:39 PM

ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest Rule...

http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/~gvcormac/acmrules.html

Red submits an incorrect solution to Problem G at 4:15. Blue submits a correct solution to Problem C at 5:00. The scores are as follows: 1st place: Red with 2 correct, 275 penalty minutes 2nd place: Green with 2 correct, 290 penalty minutes 3rd place: Blue with 1 correct, 240 penalty minutes

The questions
The problems draw from high school and college mathematics and computing, as well as everyday knowledge and problem solving. 500 sample questions (and an on-line judge) are available at http://acm.gui.uva.es/problemset/.

Strategy
An article on team strategy is available at http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds3-2 /progcon.html.

3 of 3

12/20/2013 08:39 PM